REGULATION OF 
IMMIGRATION TO EXCLUDE 


UNDESIRABLE FOREIGNERS 


STEPHEN B. WEEKS 


CLASS OF 1886; PH.D. THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 


LIBRARY 
OF THE 


UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA 
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3 SPEECH 


oF 


ON. F. M. SIMMONS, 
- +OF NORTH CAROLINA, 


In rue Senate or THE Unirep Srares, 
S Mondey, March 18, 1912. 


33 mies, 
ate haying under consideration the bill (S. 8175) to regulate 
mi ation of aliens to and the residence of aliens in the United 


SIDENT: I send to the desk, and request that it be read, 
ing amendment offered by myself to the bill. 

VICH PRESIDENT. The Senator from North Carolina 
he amendment, or submits it for future offering? 
MMONS. For future offering. I ask that it be read. 
CHE PRESIDENT. The Secretary will read the pro- 
nendment. 

CBETARY. On page 7, line 5, after the word “ pre- 
insert the following: 


TSODS over 16 years of age and physically capable of reading 
n not read the English language or some other language; but 
e immigrant or person now in or hereafter admitted to this 
may bring or send for his wife, his children under 18 years 
and his parents or grandparents over 50 years of age, if they 
wise admissible, whether they are so able to read or not. 
purpose of testing the ability ef the immigrant to. read, 
icer shall be furnished with copies of the Constitution 
ed States,. printed on uniform pasteboard slips, each con- 
ess than 20 nor more than 25 words of said Constitution 
the yarious languages of the immigrant in double small 
Each immigrant may designate the language in which he 
est shall be made, and shall be required to read the words 
4 slip in such language. No two immigrants listed on the 
lanifest shal! be tested with the same slip. An immigrant fail- 
read as above provided shall not be admitted, but shall be re- 
the country from which he came at the expense of the steam- 
railroad company which brought him: Provided, That all per- 
hether able to read the Hnglish language or some other language 
able te do so, who shall enter the United States except at the 
thereof, or at such other place or places as the Secretary of 
ce and Labor may from time to time designate, shall be ad- 
d to have entered the country unlawfully, and shall be deported 
aw provided. 
SIMMONS. f§x-President Roosevelt, Mr. President, in 
rious discussions of our national problems, has said that 
the possible exception of the conservation of our natural 
ources immigration is our most important problem. While 
together agreeing with this declaration of the ex-President, 
idered from the standpoint of social, political, and eco- 
Mi _ effect upon our people and our country, I do think im- 
ration is at least one of the most important questions now 
onting the American people. 
il recently, from a lack of full statistical information on 
‘subject of immigration, most of our discussions of that sub- 
haye been largely based upon conjectures derived from the 
ersonal observation of individuals and inadequate official data 
nd information. That difficulty does not longer exist. The 
bundant data and statistical information collected by the Im- 
igration Commission during its four years’ investigation, con- 
ted not only in this country but in Europe, have supplied 
th full and conclusive official information from which we 
‘each a reasonably accurate judgment with regard to the 
and the remedies. 


i ant aspect of the immigration question. I shall confine 
elf almost entirely to a discussion of the amendment, which 


ectionable foreigners is not a new proposition either in our 
public discussions or in our legislation. It has for many years 
been the subject of comment in the press of the country. It has 
the indorsement of national party platforms. It has 


SHSSION. 


Presidents. It has repeatedly been recommended by immigra- 
tion officials, who are thoroughly acquainted with the needs of 
our immigration conditions, and it has passed one or the other 
branch of Congress seven or eight times. 

In the Wifty-fourth Congress a proposition to apply an edu- 
cational test passed both Houses. In the House the vote in 
favor of the bill was 195 to 20. In the Senate it was passed by 
the decisive vote of 52 to 10. That bill did not become a law 
by reason of the fact that President Cleveland vetoed it. Right 
here, Mr. President, I want to say that I have been informed— 
I do not know whether reliably so or not—that Mr. Cleveland 
subsequently expressed regret on account of that veto. 

Again, in the Fifty-fifth Congress, a bill embodying the edu- 
cational test passed the Senate by a vote of 45 to 28, and, again, 
in the Fifty-seventh Congress, a bill applying this test, in the 
form of an amendment to House bill 12191, was adopted by a 
vote of 87 to 7. : 

So it will be seen that every time this proposition has been 
before either branch of Congress it has been adopted, and 
always by a most decisive majority, sometimes five or ten to one. 

Mr. President, as far back as 1896, when the evils of immigra- 
tion were not so great as new, when these evils did not call as 
loudly for a remedy as now, the Republican national conyen- 
tion of that year, not in general terms, not inferentially, but in 
direct and specific terms, indorsed the educational test as the 
best and most effective method of keeping out undesirable for- 
eigners. I want to read to the Senate this plank in the Repub- 
lican platferm of that year. It is as follows: 

For the protection of the quality of our American citizenship and of 
the wages ef our werkingmen against the fatal competition of low- 
priced Jabor we demand that the immigration laws be thoroughly 
enforced and so extended as to exclude from entrance to the United 
States those who can neither read nor write. 

The Democratic platform of that year indorsed the principle, 
although it was not so specific as the Republican platform. It 
went to the root of the evil {n so far as it affects economic con- 
ditions in this country, and that is the most acute phase of the 
evils of the present enormous immigration. It declared: 

We hold that the most efficient way of protecting American labor is 
to prevent the importation of foreign pauper labor to compete with it 
in the home market. 

Shortly after the declaration I have read from the Republican 
platform, Mr. McKinley, who was elected President that year, 
in his inaugural address, in forceful terms declared himself 
in favor of the application of an intelligence test by which those 
who were not capable of understanding and appreciating the 
responsibilities and duties of American citizenship might be 
excluded from our shores, 

In his first message to Congress in 1901 Mr. Roosevelt, in 
more direct terms than Mr. McKinley, dealing not with the sub- 
ject generally, but dealing with the specific proposition of an 
illiteracy test, gave expression to his views in no uncertain 
terms. After discussing the subject at some length, he said: 

The second object ef a proper imniigration law ought to be to secure 
by a careful, and not merely perfunctory, educational test some in- 
telligent capacity to appreciate American institutions and act sanely 
as American citizens. 

In his message to Congress in December, 1902, Mr. Roosevelt 
reiterated his recommendation of the previous year and de- 
clared himself in favor of a certain specific amendment that he 
said had already passed the House of Representatives. That 
amendment was one introduced by Mr. UNprRWoop, of Alabama, 
the present Democratic leader of the House, and which in sub- 
stance and effect was identical with the amendment which I 
have offered and to which I am now addressing myself. 

Mr. President, I need not take the time of the Senate in read- 
ing the many recommendations of the Commissioner General of 
Immigration upon this subject or those of Commissioner Wil- 
liam Williams, stationed at Ellis Island, New York City, our 
chief immigration port, who is thrown more directly in contact 
with the newly arrived immigrant than anyone else in the 
country, for the Senate knows and the country knows how per- 
sistently the immigration officials, whose duty it is to adminis- 
ter our immigration laws, have advocated and recommended to 
Congress legislation of this character. 

When the present immigration law was pending before the 


Senate in 1906, I offered an amendment providing for an edu- 
- 


cational test, which, with certain modifications suggested by 
the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Loper] and accepted by 


myself, was adopted by the Senate. That is the-last time the 
Senate acted upon this subject, an investigation intervening. 
The amendment which I then offered, with the modifications to 
which I have referred, and which then passed the Senate after 
a brief discussion—I think no one speaking in opposition, and 
no vote being cast against it—I have offered again to the bill 
now pending before the Senate. There was never a direct vote 
upon that amendment in the House. I have every reason to be- 
lieve that if there had been a direct vote upon it it would have 
passed the House with a decisive majority. Similar amend- 
ments had frequently passed the House before, but there were in 
that body then those who were opposed to that amendment, just 
as there are now, and we understand perfectly well when the op- 
ponents of legislation find themselves in a minority and unable 
to defeat legislation they generally resort to the device of an 
investigation. 

So in the other House when this amendment came up it was 
antagonized by a proposition to substitute for it a provision for 
a thoroughgoing investigation, in order that we might have full 
information, although at that time and for more than 10 years 
there had been these expressions of expert opinion and of strong 
public sentiment for the measure, which I have recounted. 
That opposition resulted in the adoption of a substitute section 
for the illiteracy-test amendment creating the immigration 
commission. That commission was created specifically, there- 
fore, and definitely for the purpose of investigating this very 
proposition, with a view to advising Congress as to whether it 
would be wise to pass such a provision as was then and is now 
proposed. That commission was composed of nine members— 
three Members of the Senate, three Members of the House, and 
of three clyilians appointed by the President. That commission 
made the most exhaustive and thoroughgoing investigation of 
the whole immigration question that has ever been made in the 
history of our Government of any single legislative or adminis- 
trative subject. Its investigations were begun in Hurope. The 
members went to the very homes of those whom it is sought to 
exclude from our shores as undesirable. They studied them 
from their childhood up to the time when they arrived at man- 
hood, investigated the means resorted to for inducing them to 
emigrate, ascertained the motives which lead them to come here, 
and looked into their qualifications for citizenship both in their 
native land and in this country. Then they followed them 
across the Atlantic Ocean, placing agents and experts in the 
steerage of the great steamships, in order that they might study 
the immigrants at close range, and when they arrived in this 
country they and their experts followed them into the slums 
of the great cities, where many of them go and remain to be- 
come hotbeds, sometimes, of anarchy and disorder. They fol- 
lowed them into the factories, into the coal mines, and into the 
railroad camps, where more than half of them go, and studied 
their lives, the way they live, and every fact and circumstance 
connected with them as laborers and as citizens. 

There was expended upon this investigation the enormous 
sum of about $1,000,000. A large corps of experts and agents 
were employed to travel over the country gathering facts, and 
a large force of clerks were employed here at headauarters to 
compile the data. Probably the entire force provided and em- 
ployed in connection with this investigation was as large as that 
of many of the bureaus in the great departments of our Goy- 
ernment. 

This investigation extended through a period of over four 
years. At the head of that investigation was the Commissioner 
of Labor and two of the leading professors of political economy 
in this country—one, Prof. Jenks, of Cornell University, and 
the other, Prof. Lauck, of Washington and Lee University, now 


the chief expert examiner of the Tariff Board. The results of | 


that long and thorough investigation have been published in 
42 big yolumes, and Profs. Lauck and Jenks, who had so much 


to do with it, have written an elaborate volume, which I have | 
here, entitled The Immigration Problem, which is nothing more | 
than a study of the immigration problem based upon the | 


information and the data obtained by the commission, together 
with their conclusions. 


Mr. President, as the result of that investigation inaugurated | 


by the Government for the specific purpose of passing upon 


the need for and feasibility of the educational test, we have | 


the voluminous report of and definite findings and conclusions 

of that commission, 

scholars. That report, after setting forth the facts and show- 

that there is in this country at this time a large “ oversupply 

of unskilled labor”; it points out that the immigrants who are 

now coming here are largely unskilled laborers, causing a 
86277—10769 


CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 


composed of nine distinguished men and | 


plethora in the labor markets, and concludes that “ substantial 
restriction ” is demanded by the conditions and that this present 
enormous immigration should be limited in the interest of the. 
public welfare. After discussing the different methods that had — 
been suggested for accomplishing this purpose, the conmnission 
declares: 

All these methods would be effective in one way or another in secur- 
ing restrictions in a greater or less degree. 

But that— | 


A majority of the commission fayor the reading and writing heat 
as the most feasible single method of restricting undesis pr immi- 
gration. 

And that— 


The commission as a whole recommends restriction as dene by 
economic, moral, and social considerations. 


a) 


Mr. President, the report says ‘a majority of the commis- ie 
sion” recommends the illiteracy test as the “most feasible.” — 
That majority was eight of the nine. There was only one mem- — 
ber of that commission who dissented from that specifie finding, ~ 
and he was Mr. Bennet, a Member of Congress at that time 
from the State of New York. I do not know, but I understand z . 
that the district he then represented was a Republican strong- 
hold; certainly he was a Republican and a Member of the n 
House as such. I do not know, but I have read in the House -- : 
committee hearings that his attitude upon this very question — 
was one of the leading issues in his last campaign. However — 
that may be, the fact remains that when the election came off— i? 
I refer to the last congressional campaign—though representing es 
a strong Republican district, Mr. Bennet was defeated by a 
majority of about 2,400 and a Democrat was elected in his 
stead, although his party associates carried the district. 
That this recommendation of the commission meets with the 
overwhelming indorsement of public sentiment in this country 
is attested not only by the attitude of the press of the country, — 
but by the number of resolutions and memorials of large and — 
powerful bodies, representing agriculture, commerce, labor, 
education, charity, patriotism, and the like. I do not think | 


that there ever has been presented to the Congress a more for- = 
midable array of petitions in favor of any specific legislative _ 
proposition than has come to Congress in support of the fii 


eracy test. At the-time that the Senate passed this amendment, — 
in 1906, I remember distinctly there was then on file in the 
archives of Congress between forty-five and fifty thousand peti- e 
tions in favor of this particular legislation. I have not investi- 
gated the matter, but I am told that that number of petitions 
probably has almost doubled by this time. I know that the — 
CONGRESSIONAL ReEcorp shows that over 1,500 came in one 
year ago last February, when the House committee reported an 
illiteracy test bill. There must be in the files and in the 
archives of Congress at this time between 75,000 and 80,000 
petitions in favor of this proposition. , 

Mr. President, in its effect upon the vital interests of the 
country, this is one of the most important public questions that 
has ever been before the American people—at least since I have 
been a Member of this body—and its importance must be my 
justification for taking the time of the Senate to lay before it 
and the country the facts in detail in so far as I can, without 
trespassing too much upon the patience of my associates. I 
want to present the facts, so that if this proposition fails again 
to become a law it may be understood that its failure is a sin 
against the light. 

Probably the most potential force in our industrial life is 
represented by agriculture. A larger percentage of the people 
of this country are engaged in agriculture—over a half—than 
in any other line or lines of industry. So, first, I wish to pre- 
sent the views of the farmers of the country upon this question, 
and I shall be able to do so without taking up much of the 
time of the Senate, because they have put their views in state- 
ments before congressional committees and in resolutions which 
have been passed by the great conventions and congresses 
whieh they are now holding, I am glad to Say, every year. 
There are several different farmers’ organizations in this country 
that meet and speak for the farmers of the country. These 
great conventions meet each year, and in those meetings the 
farmers give expression to their views upon public questions. 
I desire to read to the Senate, first, the resolutions of the 
Farmers’ National Congress; but before doing so I want to 
explain what that organization is. It is not what might be 
called a strictly farmers organization. It is a great national 
gathering in which there are representatives—farmers, students 


| of agriculture, agricultural workers, and others interested in 
ing the conditions of labor generally, reaches the conclusion | 


practical and scientific farming—are selected as delegates by 
agricultural bodies and by the governors of the various States 
and Territories from among the most prominent and influential 
persons representing agriculture in those States and Territories. 


———— 


Consequently it will be readily understood that the Warmers’ 


National Congress represents in a broad sense the agricultural 
sentiment of the country, and that whatever declaration it may 
make about a question of public importance is entitled to con- 


_ fidence and respect. Here is what the last congress said: 


Whereas the congressional Immigration Commission’s report of 40 
volumes has just been published and recommends the very measures 
which this organization has been advocating in its resolutions for 


years to judiciously restrict undesirable immigration ; 


Resolved, That we enthusiastically approve the commission’s legis- 
lative recommendations that the head tax be increased, the illiteracy 
test be enacted, the foreign steamships be fined for pringing undesir- 
ables, and that other judicious measures be adopted, which are hereby 
urged upon the Congress of the United States. 


Mr. President, I have here—and I propose to read it, or a 
part, at least—a letter addressed to me from Kendalia, W. Va., 
dated February 27, signed by one of the secretaries of the 
Farmers’ National Congress, Mr. O. D. Hill, in which he says: 


It was with regret that I learned 8S. 3175 had been reported with 
the illiteracy test stricken out, with no increase in the head tax pro- 
vided for, and with section 81 extending the work of the division en- 
gaged in “beneficially distributing aliens.’ 

The farmers of the country are opposed to the present kind and 
quantity of immigration. The subject of proper restrictions and their 
enforcement by means of an efficient administrative policy, such as 
Canada has, have been discussed every year and resolutions passed 
every year for some time at our annual congresses. The above farmers’ 
organization is representative. It held its thirty-first annual session 
&t Columbus, Ohio, last October. The meeting lasted one week, and 
there were over 2,000 delegates from all parts of the country present. 

At that meeting the following resolution was adopted— 


There he incorporates in his letter the same resolution I have 
just read, and goes on to say: 


I see that you have offered an illiteracy test amendment to the Dill 
S. 3175, and I am taking the liberty of writing you this letter to 
assure you that it meets with the approval of the Farmers’ National 
Congress and that your efforts will be appreciated by its extensive 
membership. 


_I now present to the Senate a resolution passed last Septem- 
ber by the Farmers’ Educational and Cooperative Union. The 
farmers’ union is the largest and most compact farmers’ or- 
ganization of any time or place, and claims over 3,000,000 
members. This organization has been petitioning Congress for 
years to enact a literacy test. I am only going to read some 
of the whereases of this resolution, because they state the rea- 
sons for their attitude far more forcefully and tersely than I 
am able to state them: 


Whereas the Immigration Commission, after a four years’ investigation 
at home and abroad, involving an expenditure of a miilion dollars, 
reports that “‘many undeniably undesirable persons are admitted 
every year”; that “there is a growing criminal element in this coun- 
try, due to foreign immigration’’; and that ‘‘ substantial restriction 
is demanded by economic, moral, and social considerations’; and 

Whereas that commission recommends increasing the head tax, exclud- 
ing illiterate adults, requiring some visible means of support, fining 
the foreign steamships for bringing undesirables that could be re- 
jected on the other side, and other measures, law in other new coun- 
tries, and urged for years by this organization in its resolutions, 
before congressional committees, and otherwise; and 

Whereas it is proposed to relieve the Northeast of its intolerable immi- 
gration evils and to continue the unloading of undesirables upon this 
country by diverting and distributing the incoming, ever-increasing 

_ influx from southern Europe, Asia, and northern Africa over the agri- 
cultural sections of the South and West: 

_ Resolved, That the Farmers’ Educational and Cooperative Union of 

America— 


I desire to state right here that that is the strongest farmers’ 
organization we have ever had in my State. I do not know 
whether it exists to such an extent up North. I believe the 
grange takes its place up there. The Senator from New Hamp- 
shire [Mr. GALLINcER] indicates by a nod that that is true, but 
the union is the great farmers’ organization of the South and 
West. 


Resolved, That the Farmers’ Educational and Cooperative Union of 
America in national convention assembled this 6th day of September, 
1911, at Shawnee, Okla., reiterate and reaffirm our previous immigration 
restriction resolutions, indorse most heartily the findings and legislative 
recommendations of the Immigration Commission, approve of the effort 
of Commissioner General Keefe and Commissioner Williams to enforce 
the law, and earnestly urge upon Congress the enactment next winter— 


This past winter— 
ep an increased head tax, some such money requirement as Canada has, 
8" 


me such illiteracy test as is law in Australia, and other needed re- 
Tictive legislation that will check the coming of undesirables to the 
Atlantic ag well as the Pacific slope. 


Mr. GALLINGHR. Mr. President—— 

The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from North Caro- 
lina yield to the Senator from New Hampshire? 

Mr. SIMMONS. Certainly. 

Mr. GALLINGER. If the Senator from North Carolina is 
familiar with the Australian requirements, I wish he would 
state what they are. 

Mr. SIMMONS. I will state that I am not. 

Mr. GALLINGDR. I ought to know myself, but my work 
has been in other directions. Does the proposed illiteracy test 
require that immigrants shall speak the English language? 

86277T—10769 


Mr. SIMMONS. No; but to read and write—— 

Mr. GALLINGHR. In the English language? 

Mr. SIMMONS. Not the English language, but to be able 
to read and write in some language. 

Mr. GALLINGER. If they can do so, is there any further 
test? 

Mr. SIMMONS. That would cover the test. 

Mr. GALLINGER. I would be glad to join the Senator in 
having such a test provided. 

Mr. SIMMONS. I was very sure the Senator would. I 
traveled through Europe with the Senator a few years ago 
and happen to know his views upon many important questions. 

Now, Mr. President, I want to read to theé-Senate a letter 
that I have just received from the president of the National 
Farmers’ Union and the secretary of the union. It is dated 
March 15, 1912, and is addressed to myself: 

Inclosed please find the statement of our commiittee’s 
before the House Committee on Immigration— 

They refer to Mr. Brooks, who is the head of the legislative 
committee of the farmers’ union, located at Washington, and 
who a few days ago appeared before the House Committee on 
Immigration and made a very exhaustive and, I think, a very 
illuminating statement in favor of an illiteracy test amend- 
ment— 

Inclosed please find the statement of our 
before the House Committee on Immigration. We beg to call this 
and also Senate Document No. 251 to your attention in connection 
with Senate bill No. 8175, now on the Senate calendar and to be voted 
apon next Monday, 

These two documents fully explain our interest and attitude with 
reference to this legislation. They show that interest and aititude to 
be deep-seated and of long standing. From these documents you will 
see that our organization and its extensive membership are unalterably 
opposed ta section 31 of the bill extending the work of the so-called 
division of information, and that we have been for a number of years 
urging the enactment of the very legislation, such as the educational 
test, recently recommended by the congressional Immigration Commis- 
gion. 

This letter is signed, as I said, by Mr. Charles S. Barrett, the- 
national president, and Mr. A. C. Davis, the national secretary, 
of the farmerg’ union. 

Mr. President, the American Federation of Labor has spoken 
in no uncertain.tone upon this subject. That organization, as I 
understand, embraces a number of other labor organizations, 
and is truly a federation. It isa kind of labor clearing house 
in its purposes and objects. Undoubtedly it is by far the most 
powerful labor organization in this country. For 10 years the 
American Federation of Labor and organized labor in general, 
including the railroad brotherhoods, have been petitioning Con- 
gress to enact this very illiteracy test amendment. The last 
resolution that I have before me passed by the American Feder- 
ation of Labor is the one of 1909. It is very short and very 
strong: 

Whereas the illiteracy test is the most practical means for restricting 


the present stimulated influx of cheap labor, whose competition is so 
ruinous to the workers already here, whether native or foreign born: 


Resolwed by the American Federation of Labor in twenty-ninth an- 
nual convention assembled, That we demand the enactment of the 
illiteracy test, the money test, an increased head tax, and the abolition 
of the distribution bureau. - 

The head of that organization, Mr. Gompers, appeared before 
the House committee on the 29th of February and entered into 
a most exhaustive, vigorous, and earnest discussion of this 
question. I wish the Members of the Senate would read the 
statement made by Mr. Gompers on that occasion, because there 
is no clearer, no more foreeful or able presentation of this ques- 
tion, and it shows that on the part of labor there is a most 
earnest and insistent demand for this legislation, and that that 
demand will not down at our bidding, and that that demand 
can not be hushed up by such a device, as it was when this amend- 
ment passed the Senate and went to the House the last time. 
The issue has to be squarely met, so far as that organization is 
concerned. 

Now, I have here a letter, received this morning, dated March 
18. It is signed by the secretary of the American Federation 
of Labor, Mr. Frank Morrison, who is well known to Senators. 
I am not going to take up the time of the Senate to read the 
whole of it, and will merely say that it is a specific indorsement 
on the part of this general official, speaking for that organiza- 
tion, of the amendment I am now discussing. The letter is, in 
part, as follows: 


spokesman 


committee’s spokesman 


AMERICAN FEDPRATION oF LABOR, 
Washington, D. O., March 18, 1912. 
Hon. I’. M. SIMMONS, 


United States Senate, Washington, D. O. 


Dear Srr: I see by the CONGRESSIONAL REecorD that you will speak 
before the United States Senate on the amendment offered by PAE ye 
to the immigration bill, 8S. 8175, and that you will deal specifically with 
the subject of the restriction by means of the illiteracy test. 

In order that you may also know the latest action of the American 
Federation of Labor on the subject of immigration, I hand you here. 


CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, 


with copy of the proceedings of ihe thirty-first annual convention, held 
at Atlanta, Ga., last November (1911), on page 66 of which you will 
find a statement by President Gompers on the subject of immigration, 
showing the Immigration Commission to have completely indorsed the 
attitude of the American Federation of Labor upon the general subject 
matter of dnmnisration, particularly that of the requirement of an edu- 
cational test. nh page 287 of the same report you will find the report 
of the committee on president’s report, reaffirming former actions of 
the conventions of the American Federation of Labor, and instructing 
the legislative committee to continue their efforts to secure the passage 
of either the Gardner or the Burnett bill, or, for that matter, any other 
suitable measure providing for the educational test. This report was 
unanimously adopted by the convention. : 

Hoping that this may be of service, and with best wishes for your 
every success on this important question, I remain, 

Yours, very truly, 
FRANK MORRISON, 
Secretary American Federation of Labor. 


I also present a resolution of the railroad employees, of 
whom there are some 400,000 in the United States, included 
in four great brotherhoods. This resolution is a specific decla- 
ration in fayor of the illiteracy test: 


Whereas we approve the restrictive recommendations made by Com- 
missioner General Keefe in his last annual report; and : 
Whereas we are heartily in accord with the demand of organized labor 
for restriction: Therefore be it 
Resolved by the Grand International Brotherhood of Locomotive HEngi- 
neers in ninth biennial convention assembled at Detroit, Mich., this 2d 
day of June, 1910, That we urge upon Congress the enactment of the 
literacy test, an increased tax, a money requirement, and such other 
measures as will materially lessen the present enormous artificially 
stimulated immigration of cheap labor. 


In this connection I present to the Senate a ietter from Mr, 
H. E. Wills, joint national representative of the Brotherhood 
of Locomotive Engineers, the Order of Railway Conductors, 
and the Brotherheed of Railroad Trainmen, indorsing this 
amendment in the most direct and specific terms. He says: 


I am writing to say that the railroad organizations which I repre- 
sent are deeply interested in the further limitation of the present enor- 
mous influx of labor by means of the reading and writing test proposed 
by your amendment and so strongly recommended by the Immigration 
Commission. As I brought out recently in a statement before the 
House Committee on Immigration, which has voted to report such a 
measure, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Order of Rail- 
way Conductors, and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen have for 
a number of years discussed in their conventions and publications the 
need of such legislation and have passed resolutions urging it. 


Mr. President, I want to put in the Recorp a few of the 
letters typical of those I have received from the general officers 
of State camps of the Patriotic Order Sons of America and 
from State councils of the Junior Order United American 
Mechanics. 

The letters referred to are as follows: 


CrystaL LAKH COUNCIL, 
Weld, Me., March 1, 1912. 
Hon. F. M. Simmons, ; 
Washington, D. O. 

Denar Sir: The State Council of Maine, Junior Order United Ameri- 
can Mechanics, heartily indorses the amendment offered by you to 
regulate the immigration of aliens. 

Sincerely, H. H. SKOLFIELD, 
State OCowncilor. 
OFFICE OF STATH COUNCIL OF DELAWARH, 
JUNIOR OrpDDR UNITED AMBRICAN MECHANICS, 
Selbyville, Det., March 3, 1912. 
Senator F. M. Simmons, 
Washington, D. C. 

DnaR Str: The State Council of Delaware indorses the amendment 

offered by Senator Simmons and favor the pasaese ok the same. 
W. A. Law, 


State Councilor. 
Attest: 


[SDAL. ] W. J. MorgeLanp, 
State Secretary. 
Sratn COUNCIL or KUNTUCKY, 
JUNIOR ORDER UNITED AMERICAN MBCHANICS, 
Louisville, Ky., February 24, 1912. 
F. M. SIMMONS, 
United States Senator, Washington, D. C. 

Dear Sir: By direction of the immigration committee of Junior 
Order United American Mechanics of Kentucky, I write you as a 
patriotic citizen to push your illiteracy test amendment to the present 
immigration bill. By doing this you will have taken a forward step in 
protecting the American home and safeguarding the American people 
from the vicious and ignorant horde of immigrants now flowing into 
this country from southern and southeastern Europe. 

Respectfully, 
J. N. Asucrars Secretary. 
Statn CoUNCIL oF RHopa@ Is “zo, 
JUNIOR ORDER UNITED AMPRICAN MBCHANICS, 
he Providence, R. I., February 26, 1912. 
Senator F. M. Simmons, 


Washington, D. O.: 

Whereas the Immigration Commission after a four years’ investigation 
recommends the illiteracy test as ‘the most feasible single method 
for excluding undesirable immigration ’’ and restricting the present 
enormous stimulated influx of cheap labor, so ruinous to workers 
already here, whether native or foreign, and so impossible of assimi- 
lation ; and 3 

Whereas an immigration bill is now pending before the Senate, and 
Senator Simmons has offered an illiteracy test amendment to the 
same: Therefore be it 
Resolved by the State Board of the State Council of Rhode Island, 

Junior Order United American Mechanics, That we enthusiastically in- 

86277-10769 


dorse Senator Stmmons’s patriotic efforts and urge upon the Senate the 
adoption of this needed legislation. 
Attest: i 
[SEAL.] ARTHUR W. BARRUS, 


State Council Secretary. 


BErTunyL, CONN., February 26, 1912. 
Hon. F. M. Stmsons, 
United States Senator, Washington, D. O. 
Sir: The State Council of Connecticut indorses the amendment offered 
by Senator Simmons and urges the passage of the same. 
Respectfully, yours, i 


. 


Crrus BE. RYDER, 


State Councilor Junior Order United American Mechanics. 


State COUNCIL OF MASSACHUSETTS, 
JUNIOR ORDER UNITED AMERICAN MUCHANICS, 
Groveland, Mass., February 27, 1912. 
Senator SIMMONS. i 


Dear Sir: I wish, in behalf of the State Board of the Junior Order 
United American Mechanics of Massachusetts, to say that we are very 
much interested in your bill, which includes the illiteracy test, and wish 
it might become a law. This organization has spent a great amount 
of money to get a bill of this nature started. Put us down as heartily 
in Hoye of your bill, S. 3175. 

ours, 


[ SEAL. ] STANLEY P. Lapp, State Councilor. 


STATH EXHCUTIVE COMMITTEE, 
OFFICE OF THD STATE SHCRETARY, 
Oak Grove, Va., March 2, 1922. 
Hon, F. M. SIMMONS, 


United States Senate, Washington, D. C. 

DnarR Srr: One hundred camps of the Patriotic Order Sons of 
America in this State, representing over 5,000 citizens of old Virginia, 
heartily approve the Simmons illiteracy test amendment to the immigra- 
tion bill, S. 3175, now pending, and urge its adoption, 

Very truly, 
EF. W. ALEXANDER, 
State Secretary of the Order in Virginia. 

Mr. SIMMONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to 
present out of order about 500 petitions and resolutions, which 
I send to the Clerk’s desk, adopted during the last month by. 
the Junior Order United American Mechanics, by farmers’ 
unions, by the Patriotic Order Sons of America, and others. 
There are nearly 500 of them. These petitions came to me 
from 86 States, from Maine to California, from one end of the 
country to the other, and each of them, not in general terms but 
naming this particular amendment, asks for its adoption by. 
Congress. 

The VICH PRESIDENT. The petitions will be received and 
will lie on the table. 

Mr. SIMMONS. Mr. President, I now present a letter, a part 
of which I will read, from John H. Noyes, of the national legis- 
lative committee of the Junior Order United American Me- 
chanics. Speaking for his order he says: 

I see by the CONGRESSIONAL RecorpD that you are to speak next Mon- 
day on your illiteracy test amendment to the immigration bill, 8S. 3175, 
now pending before the Senate, and I beg to say that there are over 
400,000 members of the above patriotic society that have been urging 
for several years with more and more emphasis the adoption of such a 
test for adult aliens. 

The membership feels that there is quite too much illiteracy in the 
country already, and that we ought to require of our own, by means of 
compulsory school attendance laws, that they be able to read and 
write—as well as of foreigners entering the country—on the ground 
that a rudimentary education better fits one for the struggle for life and 
for citizenship in this country. 

Mr. President, in nearly every State we are expending an- 
nually enormous sums of money to educate the boys and the girls 
who are to be the citizens of the future, who are to control the 
destiny of this country and its institutions. In many States 
there are compulsory-attendance laws. The taxpayers are 
assuming this great financial burden, they are insisting upon this 
higher degree of education for our boys and girls, because they 
appreciate and thoroughly understand the fact that in an en- 
lightened democracy such as ours, a country where we have 
sovereignty citizenship, the safety of our institutions, nay, the 
perpetuity of those institutions, depends upon the measure of 
intelligence of its people. 

Here, sir, we are spending annually upon our boys hundreds 
of millions of dollars to fit them. for citizenship, because we 
know that that better fits them for participation in a govern- 
ment like ours. Yet, Mr. President, in the face of this fact, in 
the face of this large expenditure of money for this purpose, 
when the Nation as a whole comes to act we open the doors 
and admit every year to our citizenship between two and three 
hundred thousand of as densely ignorant and illiterate peoples 
as live under God’s sun. Why should we do this? Is it nota 
contradiction in policy? Is it not inconsistent with our whole 
educational history, especially of the last 25 or 80 years? 

As pertinent to this phase of the question, I now present a 
letter that I have just received from the vice councillor of the 
New York State Council of the Junior Order of United Amert- 
can Mechanics. He is Mr. William B. Griffith. I shall read 
only a portion of Mr. Griffith’s letter. He says: 


On behalf of some 30,000 members of the above patriotic organization 
in the Empire State I beg to say that the adoption of the reading test 


CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 


° 


for adult aliens, as proposed by your amendment to 8. 3175, will meet 
With universal favor, because we firmly believe that an elementary 
education makes our own native born better and fitter producers as 
well as citizens, 

While the proper restriction of immigration will be opposed by the 
foreign steamship companies, the large employers and padrones— 


Mr. President, it is this subtle opposition, this interested, 
this selfish, this unholy opposition, an opposition that considers 
not the rights nor the interests of the American citizen or of 
American labor, whether native or foreign born, that in the 
past has prevented the adoption of this legislation, in my 
opinion, although every vote ever taken upon it shows that both 
branches of Congress are overwhelmingly, and have been for 
ar overwhelmingly, in favor of it. Continuing, Mr. Grif- 

says: 


While the proper restriction of immigration will be opposed by the 
foreign steamship companies, the large employers and padrones, cer- 
tain importers who fear an increase in freight rates as a result of re- 
striction, and other selfish and misguided interests and influences, the 
great majority of people in this State, and particularly the farmers— 


Mr. President, I want to say right here that I believe the 
farmers of my section of the country are more opposed and more 
earnestly opposed to this immigration than eyen the laborers— 
laborers, and patriotic persons that are organized are not only in favor 
of the legislation, but are very much aroused over the laxness of our 
immigration laws and the feebleness of our administrative policy, as 


compared with those of Canada, Australia, and some other new 
countries. 


Mr. President, I have here a similar letter from Mr. Charles 
H. Stees, national secretary of the Patriotic Order Sons of 
America. He says: 


The extensive membership of the above patriotic pia which has, 
for instance, over 100,000 active members, all yoters, in my State 
(Pennsylvania), and has thousands in every State east of the Missis- 
sippi and in some States west of the Mississippi, are very much in 
favor of your cy test amendment to 8. 3175, and the 30,000 mem- 
bers in the Old North State will appreciate your efforts in behalf of 
that measure, which is in keeping with our public-school system and 
which would merely require of adult aliens coming here what our 
publie-school system and compulsory school attendance laws exact or 
ought to of our own native born. 


I also present a Jetter from the general master workman of 
the Knights of Labor, written to me from Washington, dated 
March 15, 1912. He says: 

As you know, the order of the Knights of Labor has long favcred 

the exclusion of undesirable immigrants, and as a means of doing so 
has also favored the illiteracy test and still continues to fayor such a 
policy. We hope that you will be successful in securing the passage of 
your amendment to the Dillingham bill as it now stands—the illiteracy 
test having been stricken out by the committee. We think this is one 
of the most important measures to be considered by this Congress—the 
exclusion of undesirables by the illiteracy test as recommended by the 
Immigration Commission. 
- Mr. President, it is well known that, beginning in the year 
1905 and extending to 1806, 1907, and 1908, there were held in 
various parts of the South pro-immigration conventions, so- 
called. They were generally gotten up by people interested in 
transportation, in land schemes and development projects. But 
notwithstanding the purpose for which those gatherings were 
called, every single one of them, I believe, because of the 
strong sentiment in the South upon the question, passed resolu- 
tions demanding effective restrictions, and some of them specifi- 
eally declaring for the illiteracy test. 

The first meeting was known as the “ Alabama immigration 
conference,’ and was held at Birmingham, June 18, 1905. It 
adopted a resolution as follows: 

Resolved, That we express to the Representatives in the Federal Con- 
gress from this State our earnest desire that they support any reason- 
able ‘measure looking to the elevation of the standard of foreign immi- 
gration, to the end that criminals, paupers, and illiterates be excluded. 

That conference, I repeat, was called for boosting immigra- 
tion. The transportation and real estate interests were there 
in full foree. 

Then came the famous Chattanooga conference on immigra- 
tion and quarantine. It was a similar gathering, but it in- 
dorsed President Roosevelt's messages recommending an eco- 
nomic test and the educational or “literacy ” test. 

There was a similar outcome to the Nashville conference of 
November, 1907. There was also one at Tampa, Fla., where a 
convention of various persons from many States and represent- 
ing different societies, commercial clubs, unions, associations, 
corporations, railroads, and the like, met February 13, 1908, 
and a number of resolutions were adopted, among which will be 
found the following: 

Resolved, That the several States carefully consider the question of 
foreign immigration as a national question, and that our Representa- 
tives in Congress be asked to urge upon Congress the enactment of such 
Federal legislation as will effectively stem the tide of undesirable im- 
migration now pouring into this country. 

The last public meeting of this kind held in the South was 
year before last, and was held at Jackson, Miss. That conven- 


36277—10769 


tion, having a large representation from the different States of 
the South, passed the following resolution: 

Resolved, 'That this convention does hereby respectfully memorialize 
Congress to pass legislation restricting the present alien influx of igno- 
rant, thriftless, and undesirable people now pouring into the United 
States from southern Europe and western Asia. 

Mr. President, the chief opposition to legislation carrying out 
the recommendations of the commission comes from those 
selfishly interested in maintaining and increasing this foreign 
influx, chiefly the foreign steamship companies and the rail- 
road companies which profit in hauling them in their ceaseless 
migrations to and from our shores and certain manufacturers 
and miners who are interested in securing cheaper labor than 
the American standard of living will allow. 

Yet, Mr. President, in the face of this recommendation of the 
immigration commission, made after four yea:s of exhaustive 
investigation at an expense to the people of a million dollars, 
and made for the express purpose of determining whether con- 
ditions require an illiteracy test, in the face of this overwhelm- 
ing demand coming from the great economic, industrial, and 
patriotic forces of the country, with practically no opposition 
except that prompted by selfishness, the Committee on Immi- 
gration have reported to the Senate a bill which confines itself 
to another codification of our present immigration laws, with 
the addition of a few amendments to the administrative features 
of our present utterly inadequate and ineffective immigration 
laws. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Mr. President—— 

The VICH PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from North Caro- 
lina yield to the Senator from Vermont? 

Mr. SIMMONS. Certainly. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. TI think the Senator would not like to 
do injustice to the Senate Committee on Immigration. He 
knows, of course, that the members of that committee who were 
also members of the immigration commission are heartily in 
favor of the retention in the bill of the educational test, and 
of the other members of that committee I suppose it is true 
that they also favor it. There were those who thought that the 
retention of that provision in the bill would endanger its pas- 
sage, and there are administrative features of the bill which 
are so important that they thought it would be better to drop 
this particular feature from the bill and present it as an inde- 
pendent measure, which has been done by the Senator from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Loper]. 

I did not want the impression to go out from the Senator’s 
remarks that the Senate committee, as a committee, are op- 
posed necessarily or as a whole, at least, to this feature of the 
bill, and I did not want anyone to think that I am opposed to 
it, because I put it into the original bill and I favor it now. 
I shall be glad to cooperate with the Senator from North Caro- 
lina in all his efforts to retain it in the bill. 

Mr. SIMMONS. Mr. President, the gist of the whole inquiry 
and the crux of the findings and recommendations of the com- 
mission appointed to investigate this whole question was the 
recommendation that the evil of which the country was com- 
plaining could be best remedied by an educational test. Yet, 
Mr. President, when that committee acted upon this great public 
question—and there was no necessity for action except in ac- 
cordance with the recommendations of the commission, the 
action growing out of that inquiry and out of the recommenda- 
tions of the commission—we have a bill without that important 
provision. 

The Senator from Vermont says that it was left out because 
the committee thought it might endanger the passage of the 
bill. Why should the committee think that it would defext the 
bill when this identical proposition has passed one or the other 
branches of Congress seven or eight times and that it has never 
failed to receive a majority of from two-thirds to three-fourths 
of the vote in either branch of Congress? 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. I hope the Senator from North Carolina 
does not think that I was afraid personally. 

Mr. SIMMONS. I understand the Senator’s personal position 
in the matter. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. I want it distinctly understood also 
that there was introduced contemporaneously with the report 
of the committee upon this question an independent bill pro- 
viding for the educational test in the admission of all European 
immigrants. 

Mr. SIMMONS. Mr. President, when—when, I say—that inde- 
pendent bill comes up we shall find these selfish interests about 
which I have spoken—the steamship companies and the employers 
of cheap labor in the mines, in the factories, and on the rail- 
roads—arrayed against it. Why not put it in this bill? It 
would be the strongest single provision in the bill. More people 
in the United States have declared themselves in favor of this 
specific provision, which the committee has left out because, as 


er 


the Senator explains, they were afraid it might imperil the 
passage of the bill—more people in this country are interested 
in it and more people are demanding its passage than are in- 
terested in any other or all the other features of that bill. So 
far from weighting down or endangering that bill, this provi- 
sion would have immensely strengthened it. 

Mr. President, this legislation, in my judgment, can not be 
postooned any longer by legerdemain or device of one character 
or another. The time has come when it has got to be met 
squarely. When the Senate passed an amendment identical 
with this amendment, without a dissenting vote recorded 
against it, six years ago, and it went over to the other House, 
there they said, “Oh, we must have’ further investigation,” 
and an investigation was, by a narrow majority, substituted 
for it. It has been charged that that was nothing but a 
pretext and a device to prevent it from coming to a vote, be- 
cause they knew that if it came to a direct vote it would be 
passed by an overwhelming majority and would go to the Presi- 
dent, and that he dared not veto it. So, Mr. President, the 
enemies of this legislation sought to defeat it indirectly, know- 
ing they could not do so directly; and by processes, familiar to 
the country, but which I, for parliamentary reasons, am not 
permitted to speak of more in detail here, they were able to 
prevent an expression of the will in the popular branch of the 
Government upon this vital question and to get this investiga- 
tion substituted for it. 

Now, after we have had this commission, costing a million 
dollars, its findings and its facts filling 42 volumes and extend- 
ing over a period of four years, boiling down the result of all 
these four years of labor in this one specific finding, when the 
report of the commission is made the Committee on immigra- 
tion contents itself with reporting a bill making modifications 
and administrative changes in the present law, and when asked 
the reason for this omission they tell us that they did not put 
the illiteracy test in the bill because they were afraid it might 
weight it down. Weight it down, indeed! Has it ever failed 
when put to a vote in either branch of Congress? When did 
it become so weak as to justify these fears of the commit- 
tee? Strong as it was before, it is now buttressed by the in- 
dorsement of this great commission, three of whose members 
are also members of the Senate Committee on Immigration. 
I do not say that this is a device, but I say that it is not 
dealing with this question bravely and squarely. ‘Therefore 
I shall, when the bill reported by the committee comes up, urge 
the adoption of the amendment which I have introduced, and 
take no chances of action upon it as a separate measure. 

Mr. President, if we were dealing with immigration conditions 
in this country prior to 1880, our present law and the amend- 
ments now proposed by the committee’s bill to that law would 
be all that was needed, but, Mx. President, in the last 25 or 30 
years the character of our immigration has not only entirely 
changed but has also been accompanied by a terrific increasé in 
quantity, and that change and increase have created new condi- 
tions, brought about new problems, and the restrictions which 
existing laws provide and which the bill under consideration 
proposes do not reach the root of the evil evolved out of these 
changed conditions. 

From 1819 to 1882 immigration to this country was prac- 
tically unrestricted. None was needed. 

As late as 1880, 64.5 per cent of the immigrants to this coun- 
try came from northern and western Europe. They came chiefly 
from England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, 
and Denmark. 

They were an intelligent, sturdy, industrious, and thrifty 
people. The rate of illiteracy among them was less than half 
that which to-day obtains in this country. They represented the 
best and the hardiest element of the nationalities from which 
they came. They were not adventurers, but men who sought 
better conditions and higher opportunities under more liberal 
institutions and laws. They were in large part descendants of 
the same stock of people who originally settled this country. 

The governments under which they had been reared, while 
monarchical in form, were in substance in the main repre- 
sentative. 

By heredity and training they understood the principles of 
freedom and of government by the people. They were fitted 
to become good citizens of the Republic. Those of them who 
did not speak our language quickly learned to speak it. They 
came with the purpose of finding and making a permanent home 
for themselves and their children. They readily adjusted them- 
selves to our habits and customs, threw off and dismissed for- 
ever all thought of their old allegiance, came under our flag, 
fell in love with our institutions, mingled and intermarried 
with our people, and were rapidly assimilated and Americanized: 

in 1869, of the entire immigration to this country only nine- 
tenths of 1 per cent came from southern and eastern HWurope. 

36277—10769 


CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 


In the year 1880 only 8.5 per cent of the entire immigration 
to this country came that section of Hurope. 

The few who came during this period from southern and east- 
ern Hurope were representatives of the best element of their 
nationalities. They came as bona fide citizens, with the pur- 
pose of becoming permanent citizens of the Republic, and soon 
became Americanized in habits and customs, thought, and aspi- 
rations. - 

Mr. President, those conditions have changed. I can not 
better describe that.change than to read from the book to which 
I have referred, written by Messrs. Jenks and Lauck, members 
of the Immigration Commission. At page 24 these authors 
say: 

During the last 25 to 80 years so marked is the change in the type 
of immigrants that it is convenient to classify our immigration as the 
old, that is, the immigrants coming before 1883, and the new, namely, 
those Dera since that date. The former class includes primarily 
immigrants from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, Den- 
mark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzer- 
land. These countries furnished some 95 per cent of the total number 
of immigrants coming into this country before 1883. From 1888 to 
1907, 81 per cent— 

Nearly reversing the figures. 

The percentage of illiteracy among the old immigrants, that 
is, those who antedated 1888, was only 2.7 per cent, far below 
that of our native population. The rate of illiteracy among 
the new immigrants, that which has been coming here since 
1883, is on an average about 386 per cent, and the bulk of 
this immigration, the most undesirable portion of it, is of 
a much higher degree of illiteracy than the general average. 
Of the 1,500,000 south Italians that came to America from 
1899 to 1909, over 800,000, or 54 per cent, could neither read 
nor write; 54 per cent of the Syrians who came during that 
period could neither read nor write; 35 per cent of the Poles 
who came during that period could neither read nor write; 
68 per cent of the Portuguese; 38 per cent of the Ruthenians; 
51 per cent of the Russians; 58 per cent of the Turks; 27 
per cent of the Greeks, and 41 per cent of the Bulgarians 
and Servians and Montenegrins could neither read nor write. 
In short, Mr. President, something over three-fourths of this 
entire new immigration is made up of a people the large part 
of whom are densely ignorant and illiterate. 

But this is not the worst. They are people who have grown 
up under surroundings which unfit them for the responsibilities 
of citizenship in a country like ours, where the people rule, and 
where every man is a sovereign. They have learned nothing 
of the duties and responsibilities of citizenship from early 
study and training, and their environment from youth in their 
native country has been such that they have learned nothing 
from contact or by absorption. They represent a different ciy- 
jlization from ours; they come, as I said before, from the back- 
ward nations of the world; they know nothing of freedom or 
its responsibilities and its blessings, and they are incapable of 
learning or understanding them. Assimilation would be a diffi- 
cult task if they came to stay. But they come not to make 
their home here and to cast their lot with us, like the old immi- 
grant settlers did, but to gather up the fragments and crumbs 
that fall from the overflowing table of our prosperity. Mr. 
President, fully 40 per cent of those who now come, according to 
the report of the Immigration Commission, remain only a short 
time and soon return to their homes, with whatever they can 
save. As a matter of fact, a much larger percentage, if you 
take the figures of the last census, go back because that census 
shows—— 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Mr. President : 

The VICH PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from North Caro- 
lina yield to the Senator from Vermont? 

Mr. SIMMONS. Certainly. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. I do not know that I understood the 
Senator. What did he say was the percentage of those who 
returned? 

Mr. SIMMONS. (According to the report of the Immigration 
Commission, it is 40 per cent. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. My recollection is that the percentage 
is substantially one-third of all, but that among certain nation- 
alities it runs above that. However, I am only speaking from 
recollection. 

Mr. SIMMONS. The Immigration Commission’s report states 
that at least 40 per cent of those coming to this country return. 
The census figures for the decade ending with 1910 show that 
a much larger per cent must return, because while during those 
10 years there arrived in this country about 9,787,000 aliens, 
the census report shows that during that time the increase in 
the foreign-born population of this country was only a little 
over 3,000,000, so that something in the neighborhood of half 
or more than half of those who came, if those figures be true, 
must have returned. 


a ee a 


-* 
- 
an 


- CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 7 


Mr. DILLINGHAM. Mr. President, will the Senator permit 
me to interrupt him there for just a moment? 

The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from North Caro- 
lina yield to the Senator from Vermont? 

Mr. SIMMONS. Certainly. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. ‘The Senator is substantially correct in 
what he is saying, but I would remind him that until the act 


of 1907 there was no law requiring the steamship companies to 


keep a record of the returning immigrants. The figures down 
to that time were based upon estimates, but it was thought 
that about one-third of the total number of immigrants re- 
turned. In the last two or three years records have been kept, 
and the number of returning immigrants has varied according 
to industrial conditions in this country. After the panic of 
1907, I think there were more aliens leaving this country than 
there were admitted for a considerable length of time; but I 
presume the average which the Senator has stated is correct, 
that, taking it altogether, perhaps 40 per cent of them have 
returned. 

Mr. SIMMONS. It is certainly true that the average is a 
little larger than would appear from the report of the steamship 
companies. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. That average has been raised from 8ub- 
stantially 33 per cent, undoubtedly, through the great exodus 
there was after the panic of 1907. 

._Mr. SIMMONS. I think that is true—about 70 per cent re- 
turned that year. Now, Mr. President, the question naturally 
arises in the analysis of this immigration situation, by whom 
and how are these people brought here, and for what purpose 
are they brought here—I mean this ignorant mass that comes 
every year from the southern and the eastern shores of Europe 
and the western part of Asia? ‘They do not come here upon 
their own initiative. The bulk of those who are brought here 
do not know anything about the United States. Generally 
speaking, they know nothing about any place in the United 
States, except the place where they are tagged for. 


I need not stop here, I think, to enter into a discussion of the } 


methods by which these people are corraled, so to speak, and 
brought here. The methods are familiar to the country; they 
are methods that are in violation of the spirit if not the letter of 
our immigration laws, and in many instances violate the laws 
of ‘the emigrant country. They are secret, clandestine methods, 
and the responsibility for them largely rests upon the steam- 
ship transportation companies with the connivance of certain 
great railway systems and the people who employ them after 
they are brought here. 

These steamship companies have thousands of agents. Iam told 
that in some foreign countries they are found everywhere. They 
are the people who control and direct this mass of illiterates 
whom they can most easily take advantage of. It is not neces- 
sary that I should go into a discussion of those methods. They 
are too well understood. The Immigration Commission in its 
report and the annual reports of the Bureau of Immigration 
repeatedly call attention to them. In answer to my inquiry, 
“Who brings these people here and for whom and for what 
purpose are they brought here?” I desire to call attention to a 
statement by the Commissioner General of Immigration in his 
last annual report: 


SOURCES OF AND INDUCHMENTS TO IMMIGRATION. 


Considerable space has been devoted in previous reports to this im- 
portant and interesting subject. It has been shown that (1) the sources 
of our immigration have undergone a decided change in recent years, 
one which is of great significance to the country and its people, and (2) 
much of the immigration which we now receive is artificial, in that it 
is induced or stimulated and encouraged by persons and corporations 
whose principal interest is to increase the steerage-passenger business 
of their lines, to introduce into the United States an overabundant and 
therefore cheap supply of common labor, or to exploit the poor ignorant 
immigrant to their own advantage by loaning him money at usurious 
rates; or, aS now so frequently happens, in the organized and sys- 
tematized state of the business, a combination of the three elements, so 
that money lenders and ticket agents abroad, the transportation com- 
panies, and the labor brokers and large employers of common labor here 
each receive their portion of the benefits and proceeds. 

I want also, for the same purpose, to read a statement of 
Marcus Braun, who was sent abroad a few years ago to investi- 
gate and report upon the question of artificially stimulated 
immigration, He says: : 

I found a condition of things which convinced me beyond any doubt 
that some European Governments, agencies, and private individuals 
are continuing to regard this country as the dumping ground for thou- 
Sands of their undesirable people. hese conditions, coupled with the 
arrogant and shee s gees assumption that this country is but an asset 
of a large number of Huropeans, subject only to their desires and orders, 
is such that if universally known in this country would drive the blood 
of humiliation into the face of every good American, and a description 
of which would defy the pen of a Macaulay. 

Mr, Braun in his report also tells of seeing tons of literature 
and other evidence in southeast Europe, showing the efforts that 
were being made by the steamship companies through their agents 
and subagents to stimulate emigration to the United States, 


- 8627T—10769 


Mr. President, I have no sectional or race prejudice in this 
matter. I have nothing to say but what is good of the people 
as a whole—of Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and so forth. 
Many of the immigrants coming here from these countries make 
good citizens and are desirable, but a large part of them—that 
part which I would exclude and which, I think, this amend- 
ment will exclude—are not representative of the people of the 
countries from which they come. They are a class who would 
never come to this country but for the methods employed to 
bring them here. Representative people of these races are not 
the kind of people that the agencies who are stimulating immi- 
gration to this country want. Representative people of these 
races could not be induced to come by the methods that are suc- 
cessful in getting this undesirable class to come, nor would they 
answer the purposes for which they are brought here, namely, to 
furnish cheap labor for our mines, factories, and the railroads. 

Now, Mr. President, for whom are these people being brought 
here? Who employs them when they come? The steamship 
companies know for whom they are bringing them here. They 
know who wants them, and the people who employ this class of 
labor know that it comes here virtually in violation of our im- 
nigration laws. The Immigration Commission says from one- 
third to a half of them come with their passage paid. 

Where do these people go to find employment? The old immi- 
gration went to the farms. The new does not go to the rural 
districts, and will not stay when taken or put there. The book 
by Mr. Jenks and Mr. Lauck, from which I quoted before, under 
the head of “ Occupation of European immigrants,” shows that 
of the immigrants to the United States from 1899 to 1909 only 
23 per cent were farm laborers, 36 per cent were common labor- 
ers—designated so—2i per cent had no occupation at all, making 
80 per cent of the immigration during that period seek employ- 
ment largely not upon the farms, but, as I shall show here 
after—excepting those who settle in the-slums of our great 
cities—in the mines, factories, railroads, and sweatshops of the 
country. 

I have here a table showing the occupations of immigrants 
coming to this country during 1911. That year 1,030,300 aliens 
entered, and of that enormous number only 13,496 were farm- 
ers; 160,000 were farm laborers in their own country, but 
they did not seek farm employment here; 175,000 were common 
laborers, 122,000 were servants, 246,000 had no occupation at 
all, making in that year 735,000, or three-fourths of the entire 
immigration, who found their homes either in the slums of 
the great cities or were employed, as I have indicated, not upon 
the farms but in the industries of the country in congested 
centers. 

I wish to present a statement made by the Commissioner Gen- 
eral of Immigration as to the occupation of these immigrants 
after coming here. It is from page 29 of his last annual report, 
where he states: 

A large proportion of the southern and eastern Duropean immigra- 
tion of the past 25 years has entered the manufacturing and mining 
industries of the Hastern and Middle Western States, mostly in the 
capacity of unskilled laborers. There is no basic industry in which 
they are not largely represented, and in many cases they compose 
more than 50 per cent of the total number of persons employed in such 
industries. ° 

In this same connection I want to read to the Senate a state 
ment by the chairman of the House Committee on Immigra- 
tion, the Hon. Joun L. Burnerr, who said in the course of the 
recent hearings before the House committee upon this subject: 

Mr. Burnet. I was talking last year to a coal operator in Alabama, 
and I said: ‘““Whom do you work?” M4He said, ‘ Welsh, Americans, 
Negroes, South Italians, and English.” I said, “ What is the sorriest 
labor you have?” He said, “The South Italians.” I said, ‘* Worse 
than the Negroes?” He answered, “ Yes.” I said, “‘ What do you 
want with them, then?” He said, ‘‘ For the purpose of keeping down 
the price of wages.” The operators and owners of mines and other 


great industrial institutions are the ones who are keeping agents in 
New York to employ this low-class labor. 


Mr. President, I wish to present here a statement made by 
Mr. Joseph J. Ettor, taken from the Haverhill (Mass.) Hvening 
Gazette of January 23, 1912, in regard to the strike and strikers 
at Lawrence, which is as follows: 

In portions of Syria, Gallilea, and Russia people know only Lawrence, 
United States. ho told them? The agents of the textile industry. 
* * %* They have cards with a picture of a mill and a house—a 
real mansion—with the people heading from the mill to the house, and 
then a bank with workers with big pay bags. Yet 75 per cent of the 
textile workers in Lawrence would not know a $20 dill if they should 
meet one coming down the street. 


The conditions which exist in Lawrence, Mass., illustrate the 
truth of my statement that these people are being brought here 
in the interest of American manufacturers to take the place 
of our American laborers, because they can live cheaper, and 
therefore can afford to work cheaper and do work cheaper. 

I have here an article, written by Mr. Lauck, of the Immi- 
gration Commission, which appeared in the February issue of 


the Survey, a New York magazine, discussing the Lawrence 
strike, which is as follows: 


THH SIGNIFICANCE OF THD SITUATION AT LAWRHENCE—THD CONDITION OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND WOOLEN-MILL OPERATIVE. 


{By W. J. Lauck, formerly in charge of the industrial investigations of 
the United States Immigration Commission.]} 


The labor dispute at Lawrence, Mass., affords an instructive insight 
into existing industrial conditions. Probably the most significant fea- 
ture of the situation has been the attitude displayed by the southern 
and eastern Huropean wage earners. Strange to say, the disturbance 
at Lawrence has been mainly due to their protest against a curtailment 
by legal enactment of the weekly hours of labor, under the impres- 
sion that it would lead to a decline in their weekly earnings. In other 
words, they have resisted an improvement in conditions of employment 
because of their lack of permanent interest in the industry in which 
they are engaged. : 

The Lawrence labor troubles have also been of unusual interest for 
the reason that the industry around which they have centered is one 
of the chief beneficiaries of our protective system. The argument has 
long been made that the woolen and worsted goods manufacturing 
industry needed a high tariff in order to protect its wage earners from 
the products of the pauper labor of Hurope. The recent development 
at Lawrence, however, has disclosed the fact that the so-called Amer- 
ican wage earner, whose standard of living, it is claimed, must be 
upheld by the tariff. is largely a myth, and that in reality the American 
woolen-mill operatives are made up of ‘‘ pauper workmen” of almost 
half a hundred of the immigrant races from the south and east of 
Europe and from Asia. 

As a matter of fact, the term American wage earner is a misnomer, 
and in no industrial locality is this better illustrated than in Law- 
rence, the principal center of our worsted-goods mills. * * * 

The numerical importance of the Polish, Portuguese, Italian, Syrian, 
Armenian, and Lithuanian races, all of recent arrival in the United 
States, is in strong contrast to racial conditions of a generation back. 

* * * * * * * 

The racial composition of Lawrence and the racial displacements 
which have occurred in the worsted and woolen mills there are typical 
of other woolen goods manufacturing centers in New England. This 
has recently been disclosed by the United States Immigration Commis- 
sion and the Tariff Board. 

Only about one-eighth of the woolen and worsted mill operatives at 
the present time are native Americans. Slightly more than three-fifths 
are foreign born, chiefly recent immigrants from southern and eastern 
Hurope. The remainder are the native-born children of parents who 
were born abroad, During the past 20 years the American and the 
British and northern European immigrants have been rapidly leavin 
the mills, owing to the pressure of the competition of the recent immi- 
grant. The south Italian, Polish, and north Italian are the three prin- 
cipal races of southern and eastern Europe engaged in the industry, 
while the English, Irish, and German of the races of past immigration 
are represented in the largest numbers. 

Of the foreign-born employees about one-fifth of the males and two- 
fifths of the females have had experience in the same kind of work 
before coming to this country, while two-fifths of the male employees 
and one-third of the female have been farmers or farm laborers in their 
native countries. The average weekly wage of the male operatives 18 
years of age or over is only $10.49, and of the female employees $8.18. 
The average annual earnings of male heads of families employed in the 
industry are only $400, and of all males 18 years of age or over $346. 

* * * * * % x 

The effect of these low earnings is shown in the bad living conditions 
and the high degree of congestion which prevails in the households of 
the operatives. * * * 

Very little political or civic interest is manifested by the southern 
and eastern Wuropeans. Only 8 out of every 10 males eligible to citizen- 
ship have taken out naturalization papers. 

% * ™ * * * a 


Such are the conditions out of which have grown the recent disturb- 
ances in Lawrence. They are distinctly at variance with the claim that 
unrestricted immigration is an advantage and a protective tariff a 
necessity to the American wage earner. 

I want to say, in passing, that Lawrence is typical of many 
of the industrial towns that have grown up as the fruit of the 
liberality of our present immigration laws. It is a foreign city 
on American soil. 'There are 85,000 inhabitants in the mill town 
of Lawrence, and less than 12,000 of them are Americans. It is 
a great industrial town. It is a center for the manufacture of 
woolens and worsteds. There are employed, I believe, in this 
industry in that town something like 80,000 people. 

Mr. President, 92 per cent of them are foreign born, and that 
part coming from southeastern Hurope does not live in the 
American quarters of that city. They live segregated, in colo- 
nies. They have practically no contact or association with our 
people. They cling to the habits of their old countries. They 
do not speak our language. Fifty per cent of them can neither 
read nor write in any language. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Mr. President—— 

The VICH PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from North 
Carolina yield to the Senator from Vermont? 

Mr. SIMMONS. Certainly. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. I think the Senator has fallen into a 
little inaccuracy as to the degree of illiteracy existing in the 
city of Lawrence. 

Mr. SIMMONS. I was not speaking of the degree of illiter- 
acy in the city of Lawrence. I was speaking of the degree 
existing among the recently arrived immigrants employed in 
the textile mills there. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. The report of the commission, page 515, 
volume 1, gives the number of Irish in that city, and those are 
American Irish, as 21,000; and the Irish race reads and writes, 
as the Senator knows. I think only 2.7 per cent are illiterate. 
With the Hnglish, of whom there are 9,000, the percentage of 

86277-10769 ; 


CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 


illiteracy is only 1.1 per cent. 
of 1 per cent are illiterate, and there are 2,300 of them in 
Lawrence. Of French Canadians there are 12,000. I do not 
remember the percentage. Of Germans there are in Lawrencé 
6,500, and only 5.1 per cent ordinarily are illiterate. Then 
there are 12,000 Americans. 

Mr. SIMMONS. I was not speaking of that class. 5 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. That would make about 62,000 out of 
the 85,000. : 

Mr. SIMMONS. Will the Senator from Vermont do me the 
favor, inasmuch as he has before him the report of the com- 
mission, to read the statement as to the number of Italians 
there? 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Of the Polish there are 2,100. 

Mr. SIMMONS. How many of them are illiterate? 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Thirty-five and four-tenths per cent are 
illiterate. 

Mr. SIMMONS. Yes. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Of the Portuguese there are only 700 
in the city, and of those—that is, the Portuguese as a rule; 
I am not speaking of the Portuguese in the city of Lawrence— 
68.2 per cent 

Me. SIMMONS. Are illiterate. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Wait just a moment, Senator. I am 
speaking of our experience in receiving European immigrants 
during the last 20 years. In those years 68 per cent of the 
Portuguese have been illiterate. Of Hebrews there are 2,500 in 
Lawrence, and the general percentage of illiteracy is 25.7. Of 
Italians there are in Lawrence 8,000, and of those we may ex- 


pect to find, as the Senator has said, 54.2 per cent illiterate. Of: 


the Syrians there are 2,700 in Lawrence, and their percentage of 
illiteracy is 54.1. Of the Armenians there are a smaller number, 
600, in Lawrence, and 24.1 per cent of them are supposed to be 
illiterate. Of Lithuanians there are 3,000 in Lawrence, with 
48.8 per cent illiterate. 

That furnishes a very good illustration of what the provisions 
of the amendment proposed by the Senator from North Caro- 


lina would do in reducing the number of aliens coming to this 


country. ; 

Mr. SIMMONS. I was referring, when giving the figures as 
to illiteracy, to the new immigration from southern and eastern 
Hurope, who constitute the bulk of the unskilled laborers in 
these mills. Of course I was not referring to that from northern 
Hurope. 

Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President. 

The VICH PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from North Caro- 
lina yield to the Senator from New Hampshire? 

Mr. SIMMONS. Certainly. . 

Mr. GALLINGER. I am very glad the Senator from Ver- 
mont has put in the statistics for the city of Lawrence—— 

Mr. SIMMONS. So am I. 

Mr. GALLINGER. Because the Senator from North Caro- 
lina made a pretty broad statement, which would—— 

Mr. SIMMONS. Probably my statement was not understood 
by the Senator from New Hampshire as being limited, as I 
intended it to be, to immigrants from the countries of south- 
eastern Europe. As understood by the Senator the statement 
would be, as he says, too broad. 

Mr. GALLINGER. I think the Senator made it too broad. 

Mr. SIMMONS. As a general statement it would be; but I 
meant to limit it as stated before. 

Mr. GALLINGER. We must give credit to those to whom 
credit is due. The mill owners of Lawrence, at their own ex- 
pense, are conducting night schools to educate these people to 
higher points. I am with the Senator from North Carolina, 
so far as being for a test, either in this bill or some other bill, 
but Senators should not make statements so broad that the 
facts will not sustain them. 

Mr.. SIMMONS. I suppose the Senate understood perfectly 
well that in discussing illiteracy I have been talking all the 
time of immigration from southern and eastern Europe. I think 
I have stated before that the immigrants from northern Europe 
are highly educated; less than 8 per cent are illiterate; and, 
of course, my remarks in that respect should have been taken 
in connection with what I have been stating. 

Mr. GALLINGHER. The Senator is right in that view, but I 
think if he will examine what he has said he will correct it to 
some extent. 

Mr. SIMMONS. Yes; I will, if necessary. 

Mr. President, I have here a statement about the situation in 
Lawrence that I want to put into the Recorp. It is from the 
North American. It seems that the North American sent some 
one down there to investigate the conditions. The writer says: 

Under the plea that the standard of living in the United States is 
higher than in any other country in the world, that the class of lebor. 


itself is better and that therefore greater wages must be paid, the 
manufacturers of textile products have succeeded for many years in 


Among the Scotch seven-tenths 


CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 9 


; ete 
hae Bes Tas: ae 


buttressing themselves about with a tariff that is not only protective 
put exorbitant. 

They have held the threat over the country that should the tariff be 

made lower the present high standard of living made possible by the 
lucrative wages now being paid must be lowered also. Suite @ reverse 
picture is revealed by the situation at Lawrence. 
- We find upon investigation that the textile manufacturers have at 
these mills as squalid labor as can be found in the four corners of the 
earth. They pared down the wages of these people, not to meet the 
standard of living in the United States, but to the barest possible 
margin of existence. 

In one miserable tenement building I 
Twenty-two of them werked in the mills at an average pay of $6.67 per 
week. This is $2.75 per week with which to buy food, clothes, light and 
fuel, and pay rent for each one of the 54. These are luxuries which the 
mill laborers enjoy under the rich picking of a high protective tariff. 

Mr. GALLINGER. Mr. President 

Mr. SIMMONS. But I do not desire to make a tariff speech. 
I am making an immigration speech. If the Senator objects to 
that I will leave it out. 

Mr. GALLINGER. I will not object to a tariff discussion 
either. 

Mr. SIMMONS. I do not intend to get into a tariff discussion. 

Mr. GALLINGHR. That will be thrashed out later on. But 
when the North American says they sent an agent there who 
discovered these conditions : 

Mr. SIMMONS. I did not say the North American sent an 
agent; I said I assumed they had sent an agent, from the char- 
acter of the article. 

Mr. GALLINGHR. If he means they are working at $6.50 a 
week, it is not true. We all know the North American wants 
to have a sensation regularly once a day. I think the fact is 
that they gathered about such information as the junior Sena- 
tor from North Carolina [Mr. OverMAN] says the agents of 
the Department of Commerce and Labor reported from your 
own State. There are exaggerations floating around about these 
matters that the facts will not justify. They are paying, and 
have been paying, a little higher wage at Lawrence than in 
some other of the industrial cities of the country, as I can 
readily show; and there is no reason why those people should 
live in the way they do. They live in that way and accumulate 
their money, aS the Senator has said, and take it away to 
southern Hurope after a while. If they do that it is their own 
fault. 

Mr. SIMMONS. Mr. President, of course the article I read 
did not pretend to give the average rate of wages, but it said 
the rate of wages of the particular household described. I 
judge, from their being crowded into such close quarters, the 
household described did not represent high-class laborers. 

I want to call the Senator’s attention to the fact that Mr. 
Lauck, who was a member of the Immigration Commission and 
is now the chief examiner of the Tariff Board, in his article 
which I have just read, gives the average wage paid to the 
unskilled and skilled laborers in the factories of Lawrence. 
The average weekly wage of the operatives 18 years of age or 
over is $10.49; and for females, $8.18. That is the average, 
and, of course, a considerable number receive a much lower 
wage. 

Mr. GALLINGER. That is higher pay, perhaps—— 

Mr. SIMMONS. That is not so much higher. The Senator 
is speaking of an average, and there must be some who receive 
more and some who receive less than the average. 

Mr. GALLINGER. The Senator says that $10 is not much 
higher than the statement he made? 

Mr. SIMMONS. The average is two or three dollars higher. 

Mr. GALLINGER. It is a good deal higher than $8. 

Mr. SIMMONS. The case referred to by the North American 
is below the average given by Mr. Lauck. It is shown from 
the context that it is somewhat exceptional. 

Mr. GALLINGER. Certainly. Would the Senator be willing 
or pate the wage paid in the textile industries in his own 

ate? 

Mr. SIMMONS. I have not investigated the wage rate in the 
textile industries of my State, and regret I am unable to state 
the average. These people are not employed there. We have 
few foreigners in North Carolina. As £ said, Iam not making 
a tariff speech; I am making an immigration speech; and natu- 
rally I went to the sections and the industries in which for- 
eigners are employed to investigate the conditions. I do not 
think that the wages in dollars and cents in the cotton mills 
of the South or New England are high. 

Mr. GALLINGHR, They are not much higher than in Law- 
rence. 

Mr. SIMMONS. I think they are higher. The money wages 
may not be much higher, but the real wages are. I will say to 
the Senator that I think they are much higher relatively, 
because around nearly every cotton mill in the South there is 
a little mill-town village; rents are low, and each house has 
about it a garden, wherein they raise their vegetables; they 
have their chickens, their eggs, their cow; they get their wood, 
"  36277—10769 2 


found 54 persons living. 


fuel, and other necessaries cheaper; and consequently their net 
returns are much greater. 

Mr. GALLINGHR. I am very glad, Mr. President, if the 
Senator will permit, that the mill operatives in the Senator’s 
States are so prosperous. When it comes to the matter of wages 
they are not any higher than in the industrial centers of the 
North, and in addition to that they work longer hours than they 
do in the North. 

Mr. SIMMONS. I should challenge the statement about their 
working longer hours, but I have not the data before me, and I 
do-not care to enter into that discussion. I would suggest also 
that their work is not so intensive. a 

Now, Mr. President, in the Haverhill Gazette, of Massachu- 
setts, there was published an article that I am going to read. 
It is set out in the hearings before the House committee in the 
testimony of Mr. Brooks, of the farmers’ union, who quotes 
in his statement what I shall read. [I read only two para- 
graphs of it. After describing the conditions at Lawrence, the 
article says: 

Worse than all else, the central figures in this whirlwind, the men 
and women who are fighting for what they claim to be their rights, are 
people who but yesterday were herding like cattle under another sun 
and sky—races with which the English-speaking people have never 
hitherto assimilated and who are most alien to the great body of people 
of the United States. They are illiterates, cheap, low-class labor, taking 
not only lower wages, but accepting a standard of life and living so 
low that the American workingman can not compete with it. 

Thousands of the strikers know nothing of the language or the land 
in which they live. To these.men and women the customs and the 
characteristics of American people and American institutions are an 
unknown quantity. They have come in by shiploads from the dark and 
forbidding byways of Italy, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Poland, 
Greece—anywhere and everywhere that the industrial procurers could 
plant their alluring banners in defiance to all the laws of God and man, 


Mr. President, the same thing is true about the railroads. 
In this book to which I have referred so repeatedly to-day, on 
page 167, speaking about railroads and construction work, it 
is said. 

Disregarding geographical considerations, it may be said in general 
that foreign-born wage earners constitute slightly more than three-fourths 
of the entire number of persons now engaged in railway and other 
construction work. 

Referring to the earning capacity of the foreign employees 

on railroad and construction work, page 169, I find the follow- 
ing statement, which I will read for the benefit of the Senator 
from New Hampshire: 
’ A study of more than 5,000 wage earners in all sections of the coun- 
try showed that the average daily earnings of native white Americans 
were $2.43 and of immigrants $1.68. The highest average daily earn- 
ings of any race of southern and eastern Europe were shown by the 
north Italians, the members of this race carning on an average $1.86 
each day, while no other recent immigrants had average daily earnings 
in excess of $1.59. 

Mr. GALLINGER. I will ask the Senator what is the book? 

Mr. SIMMONS. It is the work of W. Jett Lauck and Jere- 
miah W. Jenks, entitled “The Immigration Problem.” 

Mr. McCUMBER. I should like to ask the Senator from 
North Carolina a question. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from North 
Carolina yield to the Senator from North Dakota? 

Mr. SIMMONS. Certainly. 

Mr. McCUMBER. On the matter of wages that the Senator 
is speaking of, is it not a fact that the women who are working 
in those mills in Lawrence and other places, who come from 
Armenia and other sections of southern Europe, are to-day re- 
ceiving a weekly wage for their labor very far in excess of 
what women are receiving who are clerks in the great depart- 
ment stores in the city of Washington—women who have been 
educated, who have graduated from our public schools and our 
high schools, and are of as good families as we have in the 
whole city? 

Mr. SIMMONS. I have not investigated that particular ques- 
tion. No doubt the “oversupply ” of labor reported by the com- 
mission as due to unrestricted immigration affects other occu- 
pations, as the commission points out. 

Mr. McCUMBER. I think they receive from six to eight 
dollars a week here. 

Mr. SIMMONS. ‘That is an entirely different class of work. 
In Washington, I suppose, there are many applicants for posi- 
tions of this kind, due to peculiar and well-known conditions in 
the Capital City. 

Mr. McCUMBER. And they receive about $9 a week on an 
average in Lawrence, as I have looked over the figures. _ 

Mr. SIMMONS. I would be very glad, if the Senator has the 
amount paid clerks in the department stores of this city, to 
incorporate it in my remarks. I have heard they are exces- 
sively low. I do not think, however, the two propositions are 
analogous. 

Mr. McCUMBER. I want to suggest to the Senator that I 
think they are scarcely in a position to make any complaint 


10 


CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 


when they are receiving a greater wage than is received by edu- 
cated women in this city. 

Mr. SIMMONS. When the Senator says they are not in a 
position to complain, does he mean the laborers or the clerks in 
the city of Washington? 


Mr. McCUMBER. I mean those who come here from foreign 
countries. 
My. SIMMONS. I do not know, as I said before, what the 


women employees in the department stores of Washington are 
receiving. I have heard it is low. That is due partly, at least, 
to the fact that conditions here are somewhat exceptional and 
that there is, on account of these conditions, a greater over- 
supply of this class of job seekers than in some other cities. 
3ut the argument that the laborers in the factories and mines 
that I have been talking about should not complain when they 
get as much or a little more than is paid women and girls in the 
department stores of Washington does not strike me with much 
force, in view of the fact that the argument is constantly made 
when tariff bills are under consideration that the wages in our 
industries are so high that we can not compete with the labor of 
the chief industrial countries of the world. 

Mr. President, the point I am seeking to make, and it is the 
crux of the question under discussion, is that the bulk of immi- 
gration coming to this country in recent years is from the low- 
wage countries of Hurope, where wages are much lower than in 
industrial countries like Hngland and Germany, and when they 
come here they are not only willing to work for less, but they 
do work for less and live for less than the American laborer, 
and so they are displacing in the industries, where employed, 
the American labor, whether native or of the older immigrant 
class, reducing both the American standard of wage and living. 

That these recent immigrants do underbid and are paid, in 
the industries employing them, less wages than the American 
is conclusively shown by the facts found by the Immigration 
Commission. 

Undoubtedly the class of immigrants now coming here repre- 
sents the cheapest labor of Hurope, far cheaper than that of 
Germany and France, and, underbidding American labor, they 
are employed in the yery industries that are complaining that 
they can not compete with Germany and France because of the 
low wage scale which obtains in those countries. 

The same conditions with reference to the employment of for- 
eigners which I have described as existing in the factories and 
in railroad and construction work prevatl in the coal mines of 
Pennsylvania. In corroboration of this I wish to read a state- 
ment from the recent hearings of the House Committee on Im- 
migration, based upon the report of the Immigration Commis- 
sion, showing that something like 76 per cent, slightly more than 
three-fourths of the laborers in the bituminous coal mines of 
Pennsylvania, are of foreign birth. The statement is as follows: 

Of the employees in the bituminous mines of Pennsylvania in 1909 
only 15 per cent were native Americans or born of native father and 
9 per cent native born of foreign father, while 76 per cent, or slightly 
more than three-fourths, were of foreign birth. What is more signifi- 

eant is that less than 8 per cent of the foreign-born mineworkers were 
English, Irish, Scotch, German, or Welsh. The majority were from 
southern or eastern Europe, with the Italians, Magyars, Poles, and 
Slovaks predominating. The term ‘American miner,’ so far as _ the 
western Pennsylvania field is concerned, is largely a misnomer. When 
they work these miners average, as in the ease of the Roumanians, as 
low as $1.85 a day, while in the greater number of cases the range is 
close to $2; more than one-tenth of the Ruthenians, Roumanians, Poles, 
and Croatians earn on an average under $1.50 a day. But unemploy- 
ment in the course of the year brings down the general average for 
nesds yg tk to $431. The south Italians earn only $399 and the 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Mr. President 

The PRESIDING OFFICHR. Does the Senator from North 
Carolina yield to the Senator from Vermont? 

Mr. SIMMONS. Certainly. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. I simply want to call the Senator’s at- 
tention to a table that will be found in volume 1 of the commis- 
sion’s report, page 412. It gives all the households studied by 
the commission the annual family income in this country. It 
gives the average amount and the range of the amount of the 
annual income of families. It shows the wage earnings in mines 
and manufacturing establishments; it gives the percentage earn- 
ing under $300, the percentage of those earning under $500, 
under $750, under $1,000, and under $1,500 annually, and shows 
to what race the laborers belong. If the Senator desires to use 
that information, he will find it there. 

Mr. SIMMONS. That very feature of this matter is dis- 
ee in one of the articles that I have called attention to 
before 


The average annual earnings of male heads of families employed in 
the industry— 


That is, the Lawrence industry— 
are only $400, and of all males 18 years of age or over, $346. 
Mr, President, think of $346 being the total yearly earnings of 


a male adult, many of whom have dependent upon them wife 
36277—10769 


Le ee ee ee 


and children, and you have an idea of the manner in which 
they have to live. 
Mr. DILLINGHAM. 
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Nore 
Carolina yield to the Senator from Vermont? 


Mr. President—— 


Mr. SIMMONS. In just a moment I will yield. : 

Mr. Lauck, speaking about the standard of living in these 
factories, says: 

The standards of living of the recent industrial Wares 

And I am talking about them— 


from the south and east of Hurope have also been very low. Further- 
more, the recent immigrants being usually single or, if married, having 
left their wives abroad, have in large measure adopted a group instead 
of a family living arrangement, and thereby have reduced their cost 
of living to a point far below that of the American or of the older im- 
migrant in the same industry. 


Then he says: 


Under this general method of living, which prevails among the greater 
proportion of the immigrant households, the entire outlay for necessary 
living expenses of cach adult member ranges from $9 to $15 each 


month. : 
That is, from $2.25 to $3.75 a week. 
Mr. DILLINGHAM. Mr. President—— 


The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from North 
Carolina yield to the Senator from Vermont? : 

Mr. SIMMONS. Certainly. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. The table giving the annual fans 
income of the family studied by the commission, to which I 
referred a few moments ago, hames every nationality, and gives 
the percentage of those who are earning less than $300 or less 
than $500, etc., but take the total native born, it appears that 
only 8.4 per cent of the whole of them are receiving under $300 
a year; that there are only 33.2 per cent of them who are 
earning under $500 a year; and that there are about 66 per’ 
cent of them who fail to get up to $750 a year. 

Mr. SIMMONS. What industry is the Senator speaking © 
about? 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. I am speaking about the annual income 
of families, the heads of which were wage earners in mines 
and manufacturing establishments, which are shown in this 
table. Those are the families studied by the commission, and 
the table gives the grand result of the foreign element. 

Mr. SIMMONS. I want to ask the Senator who was the 
chairman of the Immigration Commission if he thinks this 
influx of ignorant labor from the southern part of Europe is 
not depressing the wages of unskilled labor in this country? If 
he means to argue that-it has not had that effect, I ask him 
how he accounts for the fact that the foreign laborers in the 
mines and bituminous-coal fields of Pennsylvania are receiving 
42 cents a day less than native miners employed in the mines of 
the West and Southwest? And how does he explain the find- 
ing of the commission that the oversupply of unskilled labor 
brought about by excessive immigration has depressed wages in 
the basic industries of the country? 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. I have not argued. I simply reads from 
the report of the commission. 

Mr. SIMMONS. ‘The commission found the hours of labor 
longer in these mines and the general working conditions poorer 
in Pennsylvania, and that the average wage of the bituminous- 
coal workers in Pennsylvania is 42 cents below the average 
wage of similar workers in the Middle West and Southwest. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. I do not want to be put in the position 
of adyocating any theory here. I have not broken into this 
debate for that purpose. The Senator from North Carolina 
was giving the figures in isolated cases. I called his atten- 
tion 

Mr. 


SIMMONS. No; I was not giving figures in isolated 
cases. I was giving the figures as applied to specific industries, 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. I was calling attention to what we 
found to be the average wages received in each household, from 
all the households studied by the commission. Now, in answer 
to what the Senator said, let me say that I stand upen the 
report and I can not be driven from it. 

Mr. SIMMONS. I am glad to hear that. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. The commission found that the great 
mass of common labor coming into this country in the last 10 
years has overstocked the market for common labor; that the 
great majority of that class of immigrants have gone into those 
sections of the country where the basic industries are carried 
on, like those which the Senator has mentioned, coal mining and 
other classes of mining, meat packing, and various other indus- 
tries. We found that in many of those communities there were 
vastly more unmarried men who had come from the sections 
the Senator mentioned, largely from southeastern Hurope, 
more than could be employed permanently, and that in many in- 
stances they would be employed four days in a week instead of 
six. The commission found that there was an overnumber of 
those who were classed among common laborers, and they 


thought it had a depressing influence, as the Senator has sug- 
- gested, upon the labor market of the United States, and with 
the exception of one member of the commission they agreed that 
" some method should be adopted to restrict that class of immi- 
' gration. ‘They recommended that the educational test was 
perhaps the most feasible method of cutting down the number 
- who would come from those sections of the Old World and seek 
employment in the basic industries of this country. 
' Now, I am heartily in favor of the educational test for that 
particular reason, and because I have interrupted the Senator 
“to give him figures which I thought were fair to state this case 
I would not want to have him think that I was in any way op- 
“posing the amendment which be has offered to this bill. I put 
'this very matter in the bill when I drew it, and it was in the 
bill when it was introduced in the Senate. 
_ Mr. SIMMONS. I am very much obliged to the Senator from 
Vermont for some of his statements, showing that he stands by 
the report of the commission from which I have read so elabo- 
ately, and that he is in favor of the educational test as a 
leans of meeting the evil of which I have complained and 
which I have attempted to point out. The only difference be- 
tween the Senator and myself with respect to that is that I 
_ think the provision originally in the bill to accomplish that pur- 
- pose ought to have been kept in the bill when reported here, 
_ and as it was stricken out I insist that it ought to be put in by 
amendment, and I hope the Senator will support that proposition. 
_ Mr. DILLINGHAM. I quite agree with the Senator, and I 
will say that I was not present at the meeting of the commit- 
when it was decided to report against it. 
_ Mr. SIMMONS. I hope, then, this amendment, in substance, 
will receive the support of the Senator when the bill comes up 
for action. 
: Now, Mr. President, I shall not read further, because I know 
am trespassing upon the patience of the Senate. My only 
rpose in making this speech was to get the facts before the 
snate and before the country, and not to indulge in any par- 
icular discussion of the facts but simply to state them. 
_ I have here statements which I think show the same condi- 
tions, as I have described in connection with the industries dis- 
_ cussed, exist in the iron and steel industry with respect to the 
employment of unskilled labor. It shows the per cent of for- 
igners who are engaged in that industry. The statement is by 
ir. Brandeis, with reference to the Steel Corporation, and is 
ased on a Senate document containing the report of the United 
Mr. 


_ Sixty-five per cent of the employees of the United States Steel Cor- 
_ poration in the Pittsburgh district earn less than the actual cost of sub- 
_ Sistence of the average American family in Pittsburgh. 

4 ‘This calculation was made at the Steel Trust hearing by 
Louis’ D. Brandeis. 

_ The average wage of 65 per cent of the employees of the steel corpo- 
ration is 17% cents an hour. The Associated Charities of Pittsburgh 
has computed the cost cof bare existence of a family of a husband, a 
wife, and three children in that city at $768 a year. By working 12 
hours a day, 865 days a year— 

_ Jam sorry to say in certain departments of the iron and steel 
_ industry they do work men 865 days-a year; that is, 7 days 
- a week and 12 hours a day. This fact was recently shown in 
_ the hearings before the Senate Finance Committee— 

By working 12 hours a day, 365 days a year, 65 per cent of the steel- 
_ mill workers earn $1.50 less than the amount actually required as the 
bare cost of living, 

Mr. President, in the face of this record, representatives of 
_the wool and iron and steel industries at every opportunity 
- come to Congress asking protection because of alleged difference 
between the cost of labor here and abroad. Especially do they 
- want protection against German, English, French, and Belgian 
' labor, and yet the unskilled labor they employ comes not from 
_ these European countries, but from that part of Europe where a 
- much lower wage scale prevails. They not only come from 
countries of the lowest wage, but a large part of them repre- 
sent the lowest wage earners of these low-wage countries. 

The result is that the product of the factory is protected 
against foreign competition, while the labor which makes that 
product is unprotected not only against German labor and 
English labor, and so forth, but against the far cheaper labor 
of southern and eastern Europe. 

Mr. President, I have here some statements taken from this 
work on immigration, by Profs. Jeremiah W. Jenks, of Cornell, 
and W. Jett Lauck, of Washington and Lee, giving the con- 
clusions of those two eminent authorities, its authors, and the 
fundamental facts gathered by the Immigration Commission 
with respect to recent immigration, and which, I think, will be 
very interesting to the country and possibly might be of much 
interest to the Senate. 

At the outset the authors say, as I have already indicated, 
that “‘they were associated with the commission from the begin- 
86277—10769 


CONGRE SSIONAL RECORD. 


Il 


ning,” and that it “has been their purpose” to put in shape 
for the public, in such a manner that its significance may .be 
readily understood by the thoughtful reader, the gist of the in- 
formation collected in the 42 volumes of original material pub- 
lished by the commission. 

The writers say they are not advocates but interpreters of 
fact, and that such opinions as they have expressed in this 
volume are the result of careful deliberation after a study of 
the facts gathered by the commission. 

ILLITERACY, 

On page 34 of this book, speaking of illiteracy generally, 
there is a table showing the number and per cent of illiterates 
of each class of European immigration—that is, the old immi- 
gration and the new immigration—arriving in the fiscal years 
between 1899 and 1909, inclusive. Of the old immigration 2.7 
per cent could not read and write, and of the new immigration 
35 per cent could not read and write. 

Speaking of the more recent immigrant laborers and <he 
“characteristics”? of the present immigrant “labor supply ” 
in this country the authors say, on page 170: 


___che recent immigrant laborers are marked by a high Gegree of 
illiteracy. More than two-fifths (44 per cent) could not read or write. 


The greatest illiteracy was exhibited by the south Italians, of whom 
one-half in the Hast and three-fifths in the South and West could not 
read in any language. . 

RACIAL DISPLACHMENT AS A RESULT OF IMMIGRANT COMPETITION. 

Competition of the southern and eastern Huropean has fed to a yoiun- 
tary or inyoluntary displacement in certain occupations and industries 
of the native American and of the older immigrant employees. from 
Great Britain and northern Hurope. 

On page 184, with reference to “standards of living,” they say: 


The standards of living of the recent industrial workers from the 
south and east of Europe have also been very low. Furthermore, the 
recent immigrants, being usually single, or, if married, having left 
their wives abroad, have in large measure adopted a group instead of a 
family living arrangement, and thereby have reduced their cost of living 
to a point far below that of the American or of the older immigrant 
in the same industry. c 

LIVING PXPENSES, 


Under this general method of living which prevails among the 
greater proportion of the immigrant households, the entire outlay for 
necessary living expenses of each adult member ranges from $9 to $15 
each month. = 

LACK OF PERMANDENT INTDREST. 

With regard to their transient and migratory character, the 
following, from page 185, shows that the new immigration 
comes, aS a rule, merely to pick up what it can find and carry 
it away: P 

Another salient characteristic of recent immigrants who have sought 
work in American industries has been that, as a whole, they have mani- 
fested but a small degree of permanent interest in their employment 
or in the industry. They have constituted a mobile, migratory, and 
disturbing wage-earning class, constrained mainly by their economic 
interest, and moving readily from place to place according to changes 
in working conditions or fluctuations in the demand for labor. 

The effect of our too liberal immigration laws upon the 
efforts of organized labor to bring about better sanitation, rea- 
sonable hours, and other improved conditions of employment is 
pointed out on page 191 under the heading: 

THE IMMIGRANT AND LABOR ORGANIZATIONS, 


The entrance into the operating forces of the mines and manufactur- 
ing establishments in such large numbers of the races of recent immi- 
gration has also had the effect of weakening the labor organizations of 
the original employees, and in some of the industries has caused their 
entire demoralization and disruption. 

And there is one of a number of conclusions as to “ The immi- 
grant as a dynamic factor in industry” that I wish to quote, 
as follows, from page 195: 

The conclusion of greatest significance developed by the general indus- 
trial investigation of the United States Immigration Commission is that 
the point of complete saturation has already been reached in the em- 
ployment of recent immigrants in mining and manufacturing establish- 
ments. Owing to the rapid expansion in industry which has taken 
place during the past 30 years, and the constantly increasing employ- 
ment of southern and eastern Europeans, it has been impossible to 
assimilate the newcomers, politically or socially, or to educate them to 
American standards of compensation, efficiency, or conditions of employ- 
ment. 

Throughout the entire field of the commission’s inquiry, and 
in every phase of the question investigated, the mistake of 
longer allowing several hundred thousand adult illiterates to 
be brought here annually, in addition to the hundreds of thon- 
sands of fiterates that are injected every year into our labor 
supply, is made most clear and conclusive in this valuable work 
of Profs. Jenks and Lauck. 

The last Congress created a Iederal Bureau of Mines to see 
if something could not be done to check the ever-increasing num- 
ber of mine accidents and explosions and other catastrophes 
that have been occurring with more and more frequency in 
the basic industries of the country. The investigations of the 
commission throw much light on one of the primary causes, if 
not the primary cause, of these awful losses of life that have 
been continually shocking the public. For it is into. these basie 
industries that this new influx has gone and displaced the 


12 


workers there whether they were native or foreign born. Ac- 
cording to this book: 


IMMIGRATION HAS PRODUCED UNSATISFACTORY CONDITIONS OF EMPLOY- 
re MENT. 

Relative to the effect of recent immigration upon native American 
and older immigrant wage earners in the United States, it may be 
Stated, in the first place, that the lack of industrial training and ex- 
perience of the recent immigrant before coming to the United States, 
together with his iNiteracy and inability to speak English, has had the 
effect of exposing the original employees to unsafe and Insanitary 
working conditions, or has led to the imposition of conditions of em- 
ployment which the native American or older immigrant empioyees 
have considered unsatisfactory and in some cases unbearable. * * * 
There seems to be a direct causal relation between the extensive em- 
ployment of recent immigrants in American mines and the extraordinary 
increase within recent years in the number of mining accidents, 

It is effects of this kind, as well as the depressing effects 
upon wages and the standard of living, that has made organized 
Jabor appeal more and more each year for restrictive legislation. 
And the investigations of the commission, according to this 
bock, completely bear out the testimony of workingmen in the 
matter, for on pages 190 and 195 the authors say: 


LOW STANDARD OF LIVING. 


_ The extensive employment of recent immigrants has brought about 
living conditions and a standard of living with which the older em- 
ployees have been unable or have found it extremely difficult to com- 
pete. This fact may be readily inferred from what has already been 
said relative to the methods of domestie economy of immigrant house- 
holds and the cost of living of their members. 

CHECKED INCRHASH IN WAGES. 

The low standards of the southern and eastern European, his ready 
acceptance of a low wage and existing working conditions, his lack of 
permanent interest in the occupation and community in which he has 
been employed, his attitude toward labor organizations, his slow prog- 
ress toward assimilation, and his willingness seemingly to accept in- 
definitely without protest certain wages and conditions of employment 
have rendered it extremely difficult for the older classes of employees 
to secure improvements in conditions or advancement in wages since 
the arrival in considerable numbers of southern and eastern Huropean 
wage earners, 

FINAL CONCLUSION. 

After considering the industrial effect of this recent immigra- 
tion from every standpoint on pages 389 and 340 these distin- 
guished authorities reach the conclusion that the effect is to 
lower the American standard of living and that some effective 
limitation of numbers is demanded, for they say: 

The preceding chapters indicate, beyond possibility of contradiction, 
that tendencies toward lowering the American standard of living are at 
work at the present time in this country through our large immigration, 


and that therefore it is desirable that by some wisely effective method 
we restrict such immigration. 

In this connection I want to read a statement made by John 
Mitchell, at one time head of the mine workers of the country, 
at present one of the vice presidents of the American Federation 
of Labor, and always a foremost and distinguished representa- 
tive of labor, whose opinion is entitled to the greatest weight 
and consideration. : 

Writing on this very question of immigration restriction in 
the Outlook one year ago last August he said: 

The American workman recognizes the necessity of reasonable restric- 
tions upon the admission of future immigrants; he realizes that his-own 
welfare depends upon being able to work and to live in harmony and 
fellowship with those who have been admitted and are now a part of 
our industrial and social life. 

The American wage earner, be he native or immigrant, entertains no 
prejudice against bis fellow from other lands; but, as self-preservation 
is the first law of nature, cur workmen believe and contend that their 
labor should be protected against the competition of an induced immi- 
gration comprised largely of men whose standards and ideals are lower 
than our own. The demand for the exclusion of Asiatics, especially the 
Chinese and the Hindus, is based solely upon the fact that as a race 
their standard of living is extremely low and their assimilation by 
Americans impossible. The American wage earner is not an advocate of 
the principle of indiscriminate exclusion which finds favor in some quar- 
ters, aud he is not likely to become an advocate of such a policy unless 
he is driven to this extreme as a matter of self-preservation. He fails, 
however, to see the consistency of a legislative protective policy which 
does not, at the same time that it protects industry, give equal pretec- 
tion to American labor. If the products of our mills and factories are 
to be protected by a tariff on articles manufactured abroad, then, by the 
same token, labor should be protected against an unreasonable competi- 
tion from a stimulated and excessive immigration. * * * 

If we are going to regulate immigration at all we should prescribe by 
law definite conditions, the application of which would result in secur- 
ing only those immigrants whose standards and ideals compare favor- 
ably with our own. To that end wage earners believe— 

First, That, in addition to the restrictions imposed by the laws at pres- 
ent in force, the head tax of $4 now collected should be increased to $10. 

Second. That each immigrant, unless he be a political refugee, should 
bring with him not less than $25, in addition to the amount required 
to pay transportation to the point where he expects to find employment. 

Third. That immigrants between the ages of 14 and 50 years should 
be able to read a section of the Constitution of the United States, either 
in our language, in their own language, or in the language of the coun- 
try from which they come. 


Mr. President, in conclusion, I do not want to be understood 
in advocating an illiteracy test for the exclusion of immigrants 
as meaning that an unlettered man fS necessarily and always 
an ignorant man in the sense of his not being intelligently in- 
formed in matters of general knowledge and that he is not under 
eertain conditions a good citizen. 

386277—10769 


CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. 


I know as a matter of fact, coming within my own 
edge and experience, that some of the best citizens of U 
try, certainly some of the best in my own State, some 
thriftiest, most honest, end, in a general way, most int 
are men who do not know a letter in the book. § 
broadly, it is untrue than an American because he is w 
is ignorant. Under our system, with our churches, our 
our husting debates and speeches, the elimination of class | 
tinction, bringing the unlettered man in constant contact wil 
the educated element of his community, he may by contact ; 
absorption become a well-informed and intelligent citizen, - 
quently of the highest thrift, with an intelligent understar 
of the duties and responsibilities of sovereign citizenship. 

But this is not true of the illiterates coming to us from soutl 
ern and eastern Europe. They have enjoyed none of the 
vantages. They learn nothing of the genius of our institu 
and life by contact and absorption. heir ignorance is 
They know nothing about freedom or its blessings or bur 
They know nothing about the responsibilities of citizensh 
a self-governed country. They are unfit for citizens whe 
come, and they remain so. : 

It is this element who come here unfitted for citizensh 


ters, who learn nothing by contact and make assimilation 
tically impossible, who are willing to live on less and wor! 


an advance in the conditions of unskilled labor as. com! 
with that of skilled labdr impossible, I would exclude. 

In taking this position I do net mean to reflect upon 
countries of their origin, because, beyond dispute, the class 
I seek to exclude are not representative of the people of 1 


as they are undesirable here. a 
Mr. President, we have to have some standard to exclu 
undesirable element. The standard of literacy is propo 
an appropriate device to this end, a device based on fundal 
principles in the affairs of men and government. . 

I do not believe that anybody is interested in bringing 
ignorant horde here except the great corporations, who © 
cheap labor, and oftentimes are indifferent as to wher 
get it, and the,steamship companies, who want the pro 
eruing from their transportation, with little regard for 
sequences to this country. These are largely responsible 
their coming. Profit is the motive on their part for bringi 
them. ‘The motives of the average immigrant of the nation 
ties I have referred to in coming here are not the motives whi 
prompted the old immigrant settlers. - te! 

They came, Mr. President, largely to escape political : 
religious persecution in their own countries; i ‘ 
search of the higher liberty of our republican institutions; 
they brought their families, and came to make this land 
home. We did not shut our doors to them; and to this clas 
men, who come here for those purposes, men who come h 
because they have a longing to secure the advantages and 
portunities of an enlarged individual liberty, we shall not 
our doers; but, Mr. President, a large part of those who. 
coming here now come for no such purpose. They come in 
main to make a stake and carry it away; and in con 
they inject into our citizenship an element which tends to lower 
it economically and socially, and which tends to disturb and 
unsettle not only the social and political but especially the 
economic conditions of the country. Only a small per cent” 
of those representing these nationalities ever become natural 
ized. Many of them.come with the fixed purpose of soon re- 
turning to their old homes. They are brought here for 
purpose of competiticn with American labor, and the compe 
tion which follows is a ruinous competition that tends to u 
mine the wage and living conditions of our labor here whethe 
native or foreign born, and to prevent wonted betterment 
their conditions. 22) 

In what I have said I have confined myself largely to th 
discussion of the economic aspects of our immigration proble 
because it is largely economic considerations that have stimu-- 
lated the present influx, and it is in this direction that the 
evil is now most acute, as conclusively shown by the cor 
sion’s report. ‘There is a political and social aspect of this 
question which I would like to discuss, but I do not feel that 
I ean trespass so long upon the patience of the Senate. — 

Mr. President, in final conclusion I trust that the amend- 
ment which I have offered, buttressed as if is by a powerful 
public sentiment and by practically the unanimous verdict and 
finding of the Immigration Commission, will, when that bill is 
taken up for consideration, receive the indorsement of the 
Senate. : Ly 


a 


ig 


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